why ben works so fast in the orchid and more evidence of ben's apathy toward his daughter's death

Ben is working fast because he wants to catch the chopper in the air.

Evidence of Ben's apathy toward his daughter's death is provided by his exchange with the future Bentham re his motivations for killing Keamey.

The idea that Ben, in the flashforwards, is motivated by revenge, is a favorite of many theorists, particularly those who want to argue that Widmore's agent violated some taboo when he "changed the rules."

I dont agree with that take at all.

While Ben rapidly gets to work, throwing crap into the thingymajig in the Orchid's basement, and while Locke sits down for any audio visual day like a third grader in science class, their farce is interrupted by Keamey.

Keamey announces his "insurance policy."

Ben kills him knowing full well that now the chopper has no place to land.

Ben has personally placed 4 of the 6 on the chopper. In the flashforwards he has contacted 3 of these 4 (Jack, Sayid, and Hurley (through his agent Sayid).

I dont know how he could have known that Sun or Aaron would eventually get on the chopper, but the mind games that he and Tom play with Michael in "Meet Kevin Johnson" suggest that Michael has a role to play in the future. Maybe its to slow the bomb.

Michael's slowing of the bomb gave a) Sun just enough time to get on the chopper with Aaron and b) gave Jin just enough time to presumably survive and be moved with the island. In the future he is using Locke/Bentham's death as motivation for Jack to go back to the island. If he needs all of them to go back to the island, presumably he can tug on Sun's heart strings with information and maybe proof that Jin is still alive. And use Claire's presence on the island for Aaron's/Kate's return.

The justification Ben gives Locke when Locke asks why he did it was (paraphrased quote) "Because he killed my daughter" "Or I was in rage" or whatever. Revenge.

He needs the O6. The flashforwards bear this out. The reason he gives Locke is false. He is operating not out of revenge, but for future considerations. His pawn sacrifice of his daughter works by building material and spatial advantage in the game he is playing.

The stranding of the chopper in the air is completed when Ben flips the switch, leaving the O6 where Ben needs them.

Ben will wait for them in the future.

Sounds good to me.

What is there to gain by stranding the helicopter with nowhere to land if Ben at the same time needs the Oceanic 6 in the future?

One would need to argue that his plan was to kill everyone on the chopper and freighter, which would suggest that he really has no future plan for the Oceanic 6 or that his actions were fuelled by his emotions rather than some rational, well thought out plan. And that putting the lives of those on the chopper at risk was an unintentional consequence. If he does need the Oceanic 6 in the future then it is just luck that they all were not killed, either by the exploding freighter or a helicopter crashing as a result of having to attempt a landing on water!

It is very hard to begin to guess what knowledge Ben possesses, there are pieces of information that we can assume that he could not have known. The first is that the helicopter was going to have a fuel leakage. If the helicopter had not lost fuel, then the chopper would have reached the freighter sooner and this would have given the time to allow both Jin and Michael to have boarded the chopper.

The question then becomes would there have then been enough time for the chopper to fly back to the island, as that appears to be the only place where they could land again as the freighter was going to explode and from the aerial shots it appears that there is no other land mass nearby for them to land on. Anyway it would be very hard for Ben to know where exactly the chopper would be when he moved the island. It could be argued that at the point of time he moves the island the location of the helicopter may not have been at the top of his thoughts.


Maybe the urgency in moving the island is because Charles Widmore has discovered the island's whereabouts and that this knowledge requires some desperate and urgent action by Ben to 'hide' its location once more. I think this seems more of a rational explanation than Ben moving the island so that the chopper would be stranded with nowhere to land.

Stitch

Rationality has never been my game.

The true threat of Keamey and his band was defeated, as far as Ben knew.

Something doesn't add up to the way he went about trashing the orchid basement to get at the wheel.

It is luck, plus the conversation that he had with Michael, and Michael's future impact to be had, because the "island still needed him alive" when he spoke with him on the boat phone in "Meet Kevin Johnson".

It is necessary that the oceanic 6 be alive for Ben, that they catch up to hime in the future.

Necessity, implies a historical unfolding of plot line, which my other posts have been stressing, (and nobody has been buying).

So do you think his seeking out of the O6 later is just a really lucky event? Because it sure seems to me that he is contacting and using them one by one.

Ben knew Keamey's name, knew what he was, when Keamey killed his daughter.

If Ben's information was perfect with respect to Keamey, what prevents him from having perfect knowledge with respect to the rest of Keamey's band, and the rest of the threat that the others just eliminated? I think that it rational to assume that Ben knew that the threat was eliminated therefore "desparate, urgent action" was not required on the basis of Charles Widmore's finding of the island.

I take this to be a rational and appropriate assumption.

Im simply looking for other possibilities. I suggested two weeks ago that Penny Widmore (whose boat couldn't have been more than miles) may have been the true source of urgency, but as brighter commentators than me pointed out the problems with this theory, Lojozz, Im merely looking for an alternate explanation.

retroactiveman wrote:It is necessary that the oceanic 6 be alive for Ben, that they catch up to hime in the future.

Necessity, implies a historical unfolding of plot line, which my other posts have been stressing, (and nobody has been buying).

So do you think his seeking out of the O6 later is just a really lucky event? Because it sure seems to me that he is contacting and using them one by one.

I still am not sure how you tie in Ben's need for the Oceanic 6 and your assertion that Ben timed the moving the island so that the Oceanic 6 would be stranded in a helicopter with nowhere to land.

if they are on the ship they either A) explode or B) are touching the water on the boat and get taken with the island (where presumably Jin is).

Ben says to Jack something like you need to be back to the boat within the hour.

He says this, drops down to the basement and starts throwing metal as fast as he can into the whatever that compartment was, intending to get to the wheel within the hour, to move the island while the helicopter was in the air. Because it would be in the air, it wouldnt be with the caught up with the flip of island, and would successfully get them off the island.

Keamey interupted his plan, and Ben seizes on the luck of him being a walking detonation device to explode the boat. This is luck. He seizes on it. But for the detonation device they would have landed and stayed on with the island, as the boat might have been within the circumference of the flip.

Ok maybe I see the problem. I am making a big assumption that the boat would move with the island.

Im assuming that we will see Faraday and Jin with the island.

I am also assuming that the boat would be with the island if it wouldnt exploded.

One last assumption, I am assuming that in the air, they would be off the island, and in the world, were ben could use them to his ends in the future, where he is.

In Bens flash forward, he seemed genuinely suprised to see Sayid alive. To me it just seemed as though he moving the island fast just to get it over with.

Yeah, it does seem to fall in his lap, a little bit.

Hope. Let me ask you a couple of questions though.

You say he is just trying to get it over with.

Would you agree that he is moving ridiculously fast in the Orchid basement?

Is he trying to move the island from Widmore?

Is he trying to get away from Alpert?

Im also assuming that Ben wants to go back to the island. In the final coffin scene:

JACK: Why are you here?
BEN: I'm here to tell you that the island won't let you come alone. All of you have to go back.
JACK: (Scoffs) Are you... (sighs) Sayid--I don't even know where Sayid is. Hurley... (scoffs) is insane. Sun blames me for... and then Kate... (chuckles, sighs) She won't even talk to me anymore.
BEN: Perhaps I can help you with that. This is the way it has to be, Jack. It's the only way. You have to do it together, all of you.
JACK: How?
BEN: I have a few ideas.
(Jack sighs deeply and turns to leave.)
BEN: Jack... I said, all of you. We're gonna have to bring him, too.

If it takes all of them to get back, Im assuming this is for a reason. If takes all of them to get back, and ben needs to get back,...

it is necessary for the 6 to be alive, so that all of them can go back.

Retro,

Instead of adding 3 new posts one after the other, you can go back to the last post you added and using the edit button add that extra information. In this thread there have been 11 replies to this post and 7 of those are yours.

Now if you assumed that the freighter was going to be moved with the island. Then one would have to assume that Ben expected the chopper to have landed on the freighter. So what would have moving the island achieved, if it moved the people on the freighter, the freighter, the island people and the island, then it would have simply maintained the status quo. The only difference would be that it moves the person who turned the wheel off the island.

Surely Ben has other ways to get off the island.

Stitch

Sorry for the excessive posting. Going back to an original post and changing content seems kind of dirty by my book, so I try to avoid it (and if I do change I try to provide explanation). Plus I dont see the problem with multiple posts.

Ben probably assumed that the chopper would land on the boat, therefore Ben worked as fast as he could throwing metal crap in the orchid basement, to prevent the helicopter from landing on the ship.

Keamey was a surprise which he capitalized on. And cheaply explained away through what is becoming is standard response.

Ben probably does have other ways of getting off of the island, but the above text quoted from the finale was provided to illustrate that Ben needs the six to get back to the island.

[I love Ben's line "I have a few ideas." I saw the discussion on the other page re teasing spoilers from the press release revealing that harsh conditions would be experienced. I bet Ben puts them through hell.]

Ben off island, plus 6 on island, equals no Ben back on island.

That's an assumption, but I think a fair one.

Thanks, for the discussion. Its really late at night where I am right now. I sat around lamely waiting for your last post. Goodnight.

Ignoring the idea of a game plan for Ben's actions, I think it's better to examine a psychological driver.

It's been pointed out that Ben could have not known about the helicopter and The Freighter - who was where and whether they would survive the explosion or not.

However, that being that, Ben knows he still has to do what he needs to do. He needs to move the Island. And it's something he really doesn't want to do. I mean really doesn't want to do. But he has to do it.

If you had something you dreaded hanging over you but you knew it needed to be done, would you dawdle? Or would you bite the bullet, as the phrase goes, and get it over with?

(I would also add that Ben was acting quickly to abdicate his throne quickly, so to churlishly leave Locke as leader with as little information as possible. Notice all the questions Locke asked were pretty much rebutted by Ben without decent answers.

And a last point: it's a TV show finale, designed to generate drama and excitement; Ben casually padding about The Orchid lobbing stuff into The Vault with all the time in the world would not be dramatic or exciting.)

AC: I agree with the last part about leaving Locke in the lurch.

However, although I obviously cant claim that Ben knew about the explosion and could not have intended Keamey to show up at that exact time, Ben did give Jack, I think it was, a time frame for how long he needed to get back to the island, I think he said he should get back to the freighter within the hour.

Then straightaway he goes downstairs and "abdicate[s]" his "throne" as quickly as possible.

The quickness plus the time frame seem to suggest a plan afoot.

I agree. I think he was giving Jack an accurate time scale by which to leave the Island or forever be stuck on it.

Get off the Island in an hour, because in an hour the Island is going to be moved.

(What he could not have anticipated at that point was Keamy showing up, strapped with a dead man switch.)

Good discussion.

And also, I think when Ben made that remark to Jack "You wanna be on that boat within the hour" he didn't even know that the boat was going to explode. He told Jack this because he knew the island would be moved within the hour, and if Jack wasn't on the boat by then he was going to be moved with it.

And when he was running around the Orchid trying to get everything ready, even then he didn't know there was a bomb on the boat. He simply was trying to get it done quickly. Why would he dilly-dally with something like that?

It wasn't until Keamy came down and told him about the deadmans trigger on his arm when he found out about the explosives. And I have to believe that he killed Keamy out of "pure rage" because of what he did to Alex.

In other words, I don't think Ben thought, "Ok, I am gonna kill Keamy right now because the freighter will explode. This will cause Jin and Sun to be seperated and Claire and Aron to be seperated. How I know that? I don't know. But, this in turn will cause the six of them to catch up to me in the future where I will contact them and use them one by one. The grief of them being seperated will cause them all to go back to the island."

I doubt it. I'd say it was more like, "This **** killed my daughter. Now I'm gonna **** his ******* neck wide open."

Sorry. A few comments came in as I was typing mine.

I think that it's possible that Ben went to the future, read up about the Oceanic 6 at some point, and maybe he (back in the past) has no idea how they end up rescued. All he knows is that if the helicopter gets back to the island before the bearings are changed (my theory is that it didn't move), then they will get stuck on the island. But if you notice, Ben isn't really all that worked up about what Jack does...kind of like how he didn't get worked up about his spinal cancer. Hmmmmm

Hi Kristen. I appreciated your post re bearing switch. One question on what you have written on this post; what do you mean when you say "Ben isn't really all that worked up about what Jack does" what event are you referring to?

Hello Iroc: I know that you are a strong believer in the Ben revenge line, so I really didn't expect to convince you with this post! Thanks for posting comments though, I appreciate your thoughts, and believe you me I am aware that holes abound everywhere (especially in my theories).

Angelo: if you check back up on this post, I think that your inclusion of extrinsic evidence, the inclusion of the writer's motivations in writing a season finale, and their actual incorporation into the plot line of the story is very interesting. This sounds stupid, but I have actually been thinking about that aspect of your post almost all morning. It suggests to me, that maybe it is time for us to consider what the show is all about, the point of the show. It is really easy to get caught up in minutae, as MollyCocktail recently pointed out. Im convinced that the show is more than a soap opera, and I dont think that the format of television precludes deeper meaning.

I think that we may have enough information, what do you say?

Retro, I mean that he doesn't seem to be very concerned as to whether or not Jack makes it back to the helicopter in time, or whether or not he listened to Locke's warning (if that's what he meant when he asked Locke "did you tell him?" or whatever he said). In other words, if he was rushing to get everything done in time because it was critical that the O6 NOT make it back to the island, he doesn't seem to be as concerned about what action Jack takes or doesn't take. One other thing I just remembered: Ben tells Locke that he has to take about a 2 mile walk to reach the others, and we see Locke reach the others right before the sky changes color. So, if Locke walks 2miles through the jungle as fast as he can, it would probably take 20-30 minutes (he didn't look out of breath when he reached them). If Ben was in such a hurry, why did it take him that long to move the wheel. What else did he do during that time?

kristen: he is kind of nonchalant when he tells Jack to get back to the freighter within the hour, which doesnt match up with how he starts throwing things around like a maniac when he gets down to the basement; which to me suggests that he is looking to flip the island or, with respect to the possibility of your idea, change the bearings while jack is in the air...

re the 2 mile walk, didnt we see everything he did between locke leaving and him fliping the switch? what do you think he did during that time?

plus once the freighter was exploded, what motivation did he have to hurry, per my theory, which you may not agree with

Retro, as for the 2 mile walk, now that you say that I'm not sure if they cut from Ben or not-will look it up. He definitely didn't do a half hour's worth of anything THAT WE SAW, so why make it a point to say John had to walk 2 miles? Why drop that in? Why not just tell him where to meet the others? I have no friggin clue what he could have been doing...maybe leaving his own videotape with a close up shot of his middle finger =) Please God tell me it's not another time delay situation!!!

Speaking of, I think his being hurried (I agree that he's hurrying for some reason...doesn't make sense w/keamy dead already) may have something to do with the nature of what he did. Maybe there's a timing element to control where or when he ends up and/or where/when the island (if it moved) or the bearings end up. Perhaps it has something to do with the time delay between the island and the freighter?? Either way I completely don't buy that Ben was the hero that we thought he was. I think there has been too much this season about how much he lies, how he's always "where he needs to be," and "always has a plan." I don't even buy that he can't return to the island. I think that very well could have been something he told John to keep him from interfering with what he was about to do (i.e. Locke insisting on "moving the island" himself). There was all that build up about John "moving the island," and he didn't do anything at all...nor did he say squat about it. I'm thinking if I want to manipulate Locke, that would be a surefire way to do it...tell him he wouldn't be able to leave the island. That would be his worst nightmare!

He could have been crying about Alex when he turned the wheel.

Kristen. Hey good ideas. We will see right?

Who's calling ben a hero though? I just want to make sure that it wasn't me. If you want to get an idea of who I think ben is, feel free to check out my "Ben as game theorist post".

https://losties.darkbb.com/no-spoiler-for-uk-theories-f9/ben-as-game-theorist-t436.htm?highlight=ben+as+game+theorist

Why the 2 hour walk comment? Maybe because Ben always has a map, even if it is in his mind. Those who have maps arent Lost, and maybe he has mapped out every moment and inch of his island.

Have a good day.